1. Field of the Invention
An apparatus for fabricating a cellular structural panel includes a plurality of supply stations for rolls of strip material and a folding station associated with each supply station for progressively folding each strip of material into a compressible cellular structure, a laminating station that includes a pair of supply rolls of sheet material positioned adjacent opposite sides of the cellular structures, a bonding material applicator station for applying beads of a bonding medium to the sheet material prior to engaging the sheet material with the cellular structures, heating stations disposed adjacent both sides of the cellular structures for preheating the cellular structures before their engagement with the sheet material in the laminating station, side forming station for folding one of the said sheet materials around lateral sides of said panels, a cutter station for cutting the formed cellular laminate into panels of predetermined lengths, and an edge strip applicator station for connecting rigid side edging to opposite ends of panels. The method of the present invention comprises the steps followed in the use of the apparatus.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
Structural panels used in the finish or decoration of building structures have taken numerous forms from drywall to decorative or acoustical ceiling panels. All such panels, obviously, have different physical, acoustical and aesthetic characteristics. The panels, however, have had numerous shortcomings, such as from a weight standpoint, a shipping standpoint, a lack of aesthetic or acoustical variety, and the like.
A panel overcoming the shortcomings of most prior art structural panels used in the finish or decoration of building structures is described in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/719,899 entitled Ceiling System with Replacement Panels. The panel described in that application is of cellular construction. Apparatus for manufacturing prior art structural panels of the drywall or acoustical panel type do not deal with cellular structures and, accordingly, are quite distinct from apparatus that would be used to fabricate a cellular panel.
The panel described in the aforenoted application includes a plurality of cellular structures that are bonded on at least one side to a sheet of material and on the other side to a connector which may be in the form of another sheet of material, elongated fibers or the like. To applicant's knowledge, apparatus for fabricating panels of that type are not known in the art even though apparatus has been developed for manufacturing corrugated or cellular structures where the cells are formed integrally in a single piece of material and may or may not thereafter be secured to other sheets of material.
Furthermore, in most structures utilizing corrugated sheets to form cells between other sheets of material, the structure is designed to be rigid and incompressible. Such structures may be found in use for dunnage or the like. The panel described in the aforenoted application is compressible for at least some period of time and accordingly a method and apparatus for fabricating the panel out of specified materials needs to be unique in design so as to accommodate a desired folding of the strips of material into cellular structures and for heat treating those folded cellular structures for desired bonding to sheets or strands of material that interconnect the individual cellular structures. Furthermore, in manufacturing a panel of the aforenoted type, the folded cellular structures must be maintained in a folded condition prior to being bonded to the sheets or strands of material even though the material from which the cellular structures are made is biased toward an unfolded or flat condition.
It was in an effort to design a machine for making a uniquely designed panel of the type disclosed in the aforenoted application that the present invention has been made.